Identity Formed Through Others' Stories and other Interfaith Insights - Webinar for the Sydney Jewish Museum

 

Vrbow, Slovakia, Synagogue ruin in 2008 

According to Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, history answers the question: what happened? While memory answers the question: who am I? To know who we are is in large part to know, and to remember, of which stories we are a part (1).  

One story that I am part of is the story of Jewish suffering. My maternal grandfather came from Vrbow in Slovakia that had a thriving Jewish community. My wife and I visited there in 2008, and saw the ruins of the big terracotta synagogue on the main street of the town. The shell of the building remains but the people are completely gone, either murdered by the Nazis or escaped. My grandfather never spoke about what happened there. 

Instead, my grandfather told us at the Passover Seder how he and a group of Yeshiva students danced on a shaky boat as they departed from Vladivostok during the war. In his haunting, deep voice my grandfather would sing the same song at the Seder that the students danced to on the sea. The song speaks of the Jews being persecuted in every generation, with our enemies seeking to annihilate us, and God saving us. 

The prophet Jeremiah tells us that Jews, in the aftermath of the devastation of Jerusalem and its people, would cry out to travellers when passing them on the road: “Look, and see, is there any pain like my pain?!” (2) I know that our Jewish historical pain is great and unique. Yet, if I want to understand and connect with others, I need to learn about their pain and their stories.

In 2001, I started on my interfaith journey, hearing the deep spiritual feelings, everyday anecdotes, religious experiences and personal stories of Muslims, Christians, and Aboriginal people (click here for one example) https://youtu.be/yyXCvOgx3mw. These interactions changed me and my identity. I now identify as both deeply Jewish and as a human being with deep connections to people of other faiths.

Hugh Mckay wrote that we are the authors of each other’s stories through the influence we have on each other, and the way we respond to each other (3). He says that these stories answer another question, where do I belong? My answer is with my Jewish community, as well as with my interfaith intercultural community with people like Mohamed, Calisha and many others Australian Muslims, Arabs and people of many backgrounds. 

My closeness and my work with Muslims has not all been smooth sailing. I sometimes had doubts about what I was doing. I was accused of siding with the enemy. On the evening of 15 December 2014, Sydney held its breath during the Lindt Cafe siege. My colleague, Lebanese Australian Shaykh Wesam Charkawi was praying for the victims on the steps of Lakemba Mosque. I stood beside him and recited psalm 23 in Hebrew. The next day we learned that two hostages were killed. That afternoon, I got an angry phone call from a stranger accusing me of being a traitor to the Jewish people.  

Negotiating questions of loyalty is tricky against a background of conflict. Some Arabic Australian teenage boys struggled with their learning about the Holocaust. I talked to the boys at their school. I was joined by three other men. The Sheikh, Wesam Charkawi, Peter Lazar, a Holocaust survivor and father Shenouda Mansour who is a Coptic Orthodox. The priest told the students that the Sheikh and I were his dear brothers. One of the students from that group asked Father Shenouda, “aren’t you a traitor to your religion by being friends with the Sheik and Rabbi Zalman?” Sheikh Wesam explained to the students that as Muslims, it was entirely appropriate to learn about the suffering of others, including the Holocaust. The survivor, Peter Lazar, then told his story. 

One of the principles of countering prejudice through conditions for the success of intergroup contact (4) is to have the sanction or permission from authority figures on both sides of a divide for interacting with people on the ‘other side.’ At Together For Humanity we always have Muslim, Christian and Jewish facilitators when we bring groups of students together. In this way it is clear that this contact is Kosher. Involvement by the principals and teachers is also very important. 

I sought this kind of sanction in writing from a Palestinian Sheikh, Ahmad Abu Ghazaleh. I asked him to write a rationale for working in interfaith from the perspective of Islamic sacred texts. He wrote a beautiful one page article that ended with a verse from the Quran that essentially said: “Allah does not forbid you to deal righteously and kindly with those who have not fought against you on account of religion and did not drive you out of your homes. Indeed, Allah loves those who act justly”. (5)

 

I wasn’t  too happy with this verse. I told the Sheik that the verse says Muslims should not be belligerent toward those who have not harmed you or stolen your lands. Which means that if one accepts the Palestinian narrative about Israel, then Jews are fair game. He is one of the most gentle and delightful people I know and he said in his gentle voice, Zalman, I can only give you what is written in the book, I can’t make it up.  

This Sheikh did an enormous amount of work for Together For Humanity, talking to thousands of children and teachers alongside a Jewish colleague, Ronit Baras. I count him among the people I am most grateful for having become part of my life. I needed to accept him as he is, and he has done the same for me. 

Notes

1) Sacks, J. (2019)  Covenant and Conversation, Deuteronomy, Maggid, Jerusalem, p. 223

2) Lamentations, 1:12

3) Mckay, H. (2014), The art of belonging, Sydney, p. 22

4) Alport, G, (1954) the Contact Hypothesis. 

5) The Quran, al-Mumtahanah 60:8.

Dis/Connection and Crown Heights Jews and Blacks - Vayechi

I walked toward the forest in St Ives, this past Monday, as I do most mornings, but this time tentatively. Australia is burning! A place that is usually a refuge for me, teeming with bird sounds, animal life and tranquility, now feels ambiguous, even somewhat threatening, possibly on the verge of igniting with deadly fire. Many Australians have lost their lives, many more their homes or farms and we have lost so many animals.

A week earlier, I walked toward another oasis of nature: Prospect Park, at the edge of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, where I visited my parents over Chanukah.  It is usually a calming walk and I often like to go when I visit. This time was different. Religious Jews were being attacked on the streets of New York, one had been murdered in a shop in New Jersey and another was stabbed at home in Monsey. I hesitated as I thought: was I safe? Would I be attacked? 

These two causes call me as I write. Living in Australia, I feel empathy with my fellow Australians. Their suffering and terror stirs my heart to compassion and concern. Yet, I am also a Jew from Brooklyn, and my recent visit is pulling my attention to the simmering situation there.

Navigating between our ties to, or disconnections from, various places is explored in my Jewish tradition. Our patriarch Jacob, born in Canaan, is said to have only truly been alive during his last seventeen years, living in exile in Egypt (1) where he finally found happiness (2).  Yet, his new home was not where he wanted to be buried, among the fundamentally different Egyptians (3), instead he insisted that his body must be returned to the Holy Land (4). Even when Jacob was alive, he considered it important that his family remain apart from the Egyptians (5).

This way of being in a place but not of the place (6), reflects my own experience growing up in Brooklyn, which came back to me on my recent visit. While I was there I caught up with a black friend from Sydney, Mohamed. I showed him around Crown Heights, starting with my childhood home. I showed him a large apartment building with black families near our old home, and reflected how, in the twenty years I lived there, I never learned the names of any of my black neighbours. This wasn't unique to me. This kind of disconnect from our non-Jewish neighbours was a common feature of growing up as a Chasidic Jew in Crown Heights. 

I find it hard to write about my old neighbourhood. It is simple enough to speak about my experience, to acknowledge that I was racist then, and felt fear and loathing of my black neighbours. It is also a matter of historic fact, that in 1991 an Australian Jew, Yankel Rosenbaum, was killed by a black man, part of a hateful anti-semitic mob. I will never forget the terror I felt in 1991 when I returned from Australia, to what felt like a war-zone, and came to be known as the “Crown Heights riots”. In 2020, another black man from Crown Heights is in custody for  stabbing a Rabbi in his home, over Chanukah. But there is so much more to this tension, both past and present, that is contested and sensitive.

Ultimately, this blog post is far too brief to fully explore the painful history or current dynamic between Jews and African Americans in Crown Heights. However, I want to at least take an interest here in the efforts to bridge the divide between the two communities (7). It is good to see role models of inter-communal friendship going to schools and engaging children in conversation. However, as someone who has been using this approach - going to schools as  Muslim-Chrisitian-Jewish panels modelling goodwill, for almost two decades, I have learned that this strategy, while valuable in its own right, needs to be part of a multi-faceted approach (8). One important element that research recommends is ensuring that participants in intergroup contact, in cases where there has been tension, are assured that this contact is sanctioned by authority figures on “their side” (9).

One suggestion I offer to my old community is to utilise religious education to guide children how to truly coexist, while also honouring our religious traditions of being separate. This is not at all simple, but it is eminently doable. It could begin with discussion of behaviour, such as the halachic principle of supporting needy and sick non-Jewish people, not only Jews, as part of 'the ways of peace' (10). It should involve exploration of what it means to be truly ethical in our ways of thinking and behaving toward one non-Jewish or black neighbours, to strive to make them so “beautiful” that G-d Himself would be proud of us (11). The children might be invited to ponder how it came to be that so many Egyptians deeply mourned the death of a Jewish man, Jacob (12). Perhaps, as one commentary suggested, throughout the years Jacob lived in Egypt, he spent time sharing his wisdom with wise Egyptians (13), not just hanging out with his Jewish grandchildren.

Eventually this discussion arrives at the question of identity. Who are we as Jews and human beings? G-d created humans with a common ancestor to prevent discord (14) based on beliefs in superiority (15) or ideas of purer lineage (16).

As for me, like people of various faith backgrounds and none, I must turn my attention to the needs and suffering of my fellow Australians at this difficult time. 

 

Notes:

 A big thank you to my learned and skillful editor, my son, Aaron Menachem Mendel Kastel. 

1)     Midrash Hagadol, in Torah Shlaima to Genesis 47:28, 81, p. 1724. 

2)     Lekach Tov, in Torah Shlaima to Genesis 47:28, note: 81, p. 1724. 

3)     Old Tanchuma, in Torah Shlaima to Genesis 47:29, 114, p. 1730, "they are compared to Donkeys and I am compared to a sheep..."  

4)     Genesis 47:29-31.

5)     Midrash Hagadol, in Torah Shlaima to Genesis 46:34, 188, p. 1700. 

6)     See also Likkutei Sichos, Vol. 20, pg. 235-242 and especially pg. 241.

7)     https://www.wnyc.org/story/attacks-against-jews-crown-heights-stir-old-fears-and-new-dialogue/

8)     Halse, C (2015), Doing Diversity, report on research project, Deakin University, https://www.education.vic.gov.au/Documents/school/principals/management/doingdiversity.pdf.

9)     Alport, G. in Pedersen, A., Walker, I., & Wise, M. (2005). Talk Does Not Cook Rice: Beyond anti-racism rhetoric to strategies for social action. Australian Psychologist, 40, 20-30.

10)  Talmud Gittin 61a. See Rabbi Jonathan Sacks' elaboration of this concept in The Home We Build Together, Continuum Books. See also statement in the Talmud Gittin 59b. That all of the laws of the Torah are for the sake of the ways of peace.

11)  Kedushas Levi, end of parsha Vayechi, Sifrei Ohr Hachayim edition, Jerusalem, p. 116.

12)  Genesis 50:3.

13)  Rabbi Moshe David Vali, Ohr Olam, Genesis Vol. 2, Hamesorah edition, p. 464.

14)  Talmud, Sanhedrin 38a.

15)  Rashi ad loc.

16)  R. Yosef Hayim (1835 – 1909), better known as the Ben Ish Chai, in Ben Yehoyada, ad loc.